Estonia V Ireland - Win, Lose or Draw?

[Gaz]

Sorry - left out one part of my post:

"We've slipped from being ranked 6th in the world when the FIFA Rankings started, to being at one point ranked 57th " See the attached graph, courtesy of those nice fellas at Fifa.

Nobody remembers that we played attractive football against Belgium in 97, or Turkey in 99 (which we didn't, by the way). They just remember that we choked and lost.

[The Legend]

As great as it would be for Martin O Neill to manage the Republic team, i would say he'd only last a week before being assasinated by our not so friendly counterparts up north!

[Gaz]

If and when Mick goes, I'd love to see us do the same sort of thing as England (cough! ) and appoint a foreign coach. Someone like Sacchi. I strongly doubt we'd ever tempt away the manager of a Serie A team like the Brits did!!

[A face]

Here here .... Mr O'Neill, come on down.

The song to sing when Micko leaves is





























"thinnngggss ... can only get, can only get BETTER"

[Gaz]

Final addenum to the Charlton/McCarthy thing, and then I'll put it to bed.

Thought about the "attractive football" thing, and this was pointed out to me.

I guarantee that if you asked your average Irish fan to name their top three experiences, none of them would be under Mick. For example, my three:

1) Italy, WC 94 (Ray!!)
2) England, Euro 88 (Go on Ray!!!)
3) N. Ireland, Qualifiers for WC 94

(Outside of that, there was the Ireland v England game in Italia 90 as well)

So you see, despite the fact that back in the day we played "hoof it and hope", we got results and a rather creditable ranking of 6th in the World. And those are the things we remember. I doubt that in years to come you'll hear oul fellas in the pub saying things like "Remember the time we nearly beat Holland in 2000? Ah sure we fell apart, but God we passed the ball well for a while, so we did."

Sounds too much like the old days under Eoin Hand, God help us...